Just Like Heaven (2005)

Watching Just Like Heaven, a romantic-comedy ghost story of sorts from director Mark Waters (Mean Girls, Freaky Friday) starring Reese Witherspoon (Vanity Fair) and Mark Ruffalo (13 Going on 30), I was repeatedly reminded of one of the better romantic comedies of the last five years: Bonnie Hunt’s 2000 charmer Return to Me.

Age Appropriateness

MPAA Rating

Caveat Spectator

Both Just Like Heaven and Return to Me are winsome
romantic comedies with at least a hint of the supernatural, and address
death and loss as well as love and laughter. Both are wiser than the
average date movie about the temptation to withdraw from life and human
relationships in the face of grief, and also about the annoyance of
well-meaning friends trying to draw one out for one’s own good.

Both films are also chaste romances about a couple who fall in
love without tumbling into the sack. Indeed, this isn’t even a
possibility in Just Like Heaven (though the film does include
some decidedly unchaste behavior from a supporting character, as well
as a good bit of rude dialogue.)

What Return to Me has that Just Like Heaven doesn’t is its affectionately depicted context of Irish-Italian culture and Catholic piety. On the other hand, while Return to Me has raised problems for some Catholics with respect to moral issues of life and death, perhaps the most remarkable thing about Just Like Heaven
is its distinctly life-affirming, even pro-life twist with respect to
end-of-life issues. Here is a light comedy that — without remotely
getting maudlin or morbid — dramatizes how

a person not yet incapacitated is in no position to sign
away life-sustaining measures in case they should ever become
incapacitated, since what they would actually want under the
circumstances may well be completely different from how they feel now;

incapacitated patients may be more aware of events around them than we might give them credit for;

doctors who compassionately counsel pulling the plug may not be giving family members the straight facts; and

family members need to resist such pressure and defend the rights of their loved ones.

Waters’ previous hit comedies, Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, each had their problems, but boasted smart scripts and assured direction as well as solid performances from talented stars. Just Like Heaven may be lighter and more formulaic than his earlier films, but it has the same basic strengths.

The film benefits greatly from its appealing stars, Witherspoon
and Ruffalo. Witherspoon, especially, shines as Elizabeth, a dedicated
but overworked young ER doctor who has no life outside the hospital
walls, until that life is taken away from her in a way she can’t
understand.

Ruffalo brings brooding charisma to the role of David, a
withdrawn young man who seems to have no connection to anything or
anything, except that he seems to have a connection somehow to
Elizabeth, who mysteriously appears out of nowhere in his apartment —
or is he in her apartment? No one knows but Darryl (Napoleon Dynamite’s
Jon Heder in a similarly surreal supporting role), a kind of stoner
Zen-talking clerk in an occult bookstore (he’s sort of the counterpart
to Whoopi Goldberg’s character in Ghost).

The themes of the workaholic professional who needs to
find a life outside the workplace and the withdrawn loner who needs to
rejoin the human race are common ones in comedies, but they’re
developed here with more conviction than usual. The script is smarter
than the typical rom-com, and Waters directs cannily, never letting
either the emotion or the comedy get out of control. (A late-breaking
plot twist had the potential to go completely off the rails, but Waters
gets exactly as much humor out of it as possible and then stops.)

Plotwise, the film is refreshingly clever about the dilemma of
characters dealing with an extraordinary situation that they will have
trouble convincing other people is real. I appreciate the forethought
David puts into what he will need to say to one of Elizabeth’s
relatives in order to persuade her that he isn’t crazy — and also how
the conversation doesn’t quite go as planned.

It’s not without drawbacks. In contrast to the positive Catholic milieu of Return to Me, Just Like Heaven turns to Catholicism only for a satiric punchline, with a brief parody of a scene from The Exorcist (along with Ghostbusters).
To be fair, it’s more a movie joke than a religion joke, but it’s still
in wincingly poor taste. And the aforementioned unchaste behavior from
a supporting character, a temptress neighbor of David’s, goes further
than it needed to (though nothing happens and her behavior isn’t
condoned).

Some viewers may also be turned off by the flaky new-age spin on
the movie’s circumstances represented by Darryl. For me, though, any
misgiving about the film’s spirituality is short-circuited, first of
all, by the way things turn out not to be quite what you might expect,
and also by the sheer goofiness Heder brings to Darryl. Clearly it’s
all a fantasy conceit; the movie isn’t in the least making a serious
statement about spirituality, as it is with respect to end-of-life
issues.

What makes Just Like Heaven even more notable is the remarkable dearth of decent romantic comedies in the five years since Return to Me.
In that time Hollywood has churned out a steady stream of disposable
date movies featuring likable stars in variously tepid, embarrassing
or downright insulting stories: 13 Going on 30, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Maid in Manhattan, Kate & Leopold. (Okay, My Big Fat Greek Wedding was all right, but that was technically an indie film.)

Just Like Heaven is the first Hollywood film since Return to Me that I would put in the same league as that earlier film, and that’s saying something.

Mail

My children asked to watch Just Like Heaven so we went to ‘Screenit’ to look up the review and based on the description of the sexual scene we decided it was not worth watching even at risk to our own purity let alone our teenagers. Then, our children came to us after reading your review of Just Like Heaven arguing that your review is applauding the movie and giving it a ‘thumbs up’… comparing it to Return to Me.

My husband and I are trying to be discerning and responsible as well as balanced parents to assure our older children, especially our teens, continue to value our word and our direction. We watched the movie and we were shocked and outraged at your review. Based on the review from ‘Screenit’, we would not have even subjected ourselves to this movie except for the fact that you encouraged others to watch it via ‘decent films’. Because of our children’s strong desire to see this film, based on your encouragement, we told them we’d preview it for them.